Organic electronics is an emerging field of technology which aims to realize low-cost and environmentally-friendly fabrication of electronic devices. Organic field effect transistors (“FETs”) are potential alternatives to amorphous silicon transistors, and may be useful for instance in relatively low-speed devices with utility as pixel drivers of active matrix displays and in radio frequency identification devices. Potential advantages to making organic FETs instead of silicon- or other inorganic-based transistors include the possibilities of large-area and low-temperature processing, which may for example help enable fabrication of electronics on flexible plastic substrates.
Films of inorganic semiconductors are often brittle and inflexible, such that their fabrication into devices may be carried out on rigid silicon wafers yielding devices that themselves are inflexible. Films formed from organic semiconductors, in contrast, are often bendable and flexible, such that their fabrication into devices may potentially be carried out by a continuous process using, for example, a flexible web support body. The resulting devices themselves also have the potential to be bendable and flexible, opening up possible end use applications that are often impracticable for inorganic semiconductor-based devices.
Electronic devices having organic semiconductor films typically include an organic dielectric film that is adjacent and bonded to at least one face of the semiconductor film. Such a dielectric film may serve, for example, as a structural support for the semiconductor film, and as an electrical insulator for the semiconductor film to prevent shorting in the devices. In the case of an FET, the dielectric film also facilitates the high capacitance needed to induce charge carrier mobility in the source-drain channel.
There is a continuing need for new organic dielectric bodies that facilitate the fabrication of active semiconductor devices providing improved performance.